Globalization and Japan

Globalization in the 21st century is tied to Japanese identity. This paper will discuss the historical context in which globalization has become important to the experience of Japan and then examine the response that Japan as a nation has had to the phenomenon--which, despite evidence of the country's resistance to it, continues to unfold, to the benefit of many industrialized countries and ultimately to Japan's cost.

After World War II, Japan was vanquished, and what had been an imperialist economy was transformed into a capitalist system. The fact of that transformation was dominated by an internal shift from a defeated military empire into a superior force in international economics. Japanese politics appeared to stabilize as well, transforming from an imperialist, expansionist fascist police state to a government engaged in economic development and the conscious practice of representative government. As an occupied country after World War II, Japan was in theory subject to the whim of the occupying power. But in real terms, Japan appears to have developed economically in part because the American occupation was specifically and programmatically intended to help Japan, its former enemy, rebuild and develop its economy and to reshape its society in significant ways.

The rebuilding effort may have suited the already highly organized Japanese society, but it is also obvious that Japan served as a strategic American outpost during the Cold War. As it turned out, the unfoldin

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ot necessarily give an endorsement to social Darwinism. One does not have to give an endorsement to economic and corporate globalization to see that in Japan, there is still a view that Japanese culture is distinctive. Yes, as Featherstone says, it is possible to discuss "the globalization of culture" (1991, p. 1), since advanced communications makes it possible for people around the world to be exposed to (mainly) American culture and the corporations that support it. However, Featherstone also refers to "the resilience of the ethnie, the ethnic cores of nations the premodern traditions, memories, myths, values and symbols woven together and sustained in popular consciousness" (p. 10). Smith (1991) develops the argument that cultural resilience is possible in the modern period, despite the efforts of competing capitalist and socialist superpowers in the Cold War to make all nation-states adhere to one view or the other. He argues that advanced telecommunications "make possible a denser, more intense interaction between members of communities who share common cultural characteristics, notably language" (1991, p. 175). However, Smith also makes the point that commercial and corporate interests behave imperialistically, that they "

Category: Foreign - G